The Guardian is reporting on the numbers of people in the UK involved in the publishing industry and of Caucasian background. Ninety per cent if the statistics are to be believed. And I believe them.
The thrust of the article is that diversity hasn’t exactly spread like wild fire across the book trade. This is reinforced with another stat that just under 85% of the respondents to the survey were female.
What I find interesting is that the newspaper headline foregrounds how white the industry is and not how female it is instead or in addition. There is almost an implicit acceptance that certain jobs belong to women: publishing, teaching, nursing and we shouldn’t therefore be surprised when we see so many women in those industries. But is it healthy for our cultural heritage for white women to rule the roost here? I only ask because if the genders were reversed I believe there would be uproar at the cultural hegemony rather than mild disinterest.
As a white middle-class middle-aged male, I know I am in no position to complain about any of this stuff, so I shall remain silent. Pot. Kettle. Black.
